“It is as if the masses have kept a secret to themselves
while the intellectuals keep running around in circles
trying to make out what it is, what is going on.”Stuart Hall

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One approach to understanding the platform of New Order politics is to view it as a contest amongst Indonesian political groups for access to power. Throughout the New Order period, economic capital was largely in the hands of a Chinese minority, while political capital was in the hands of the abangan Javanese priyayi. At the same time, the santri (the ‘true Muslims’), have been economically and politically marginalized. They have been, as Wertheim (1975) puts it, “the outsiders”. Since the 1980s, thanks to the success of the development, Indonesia has been going through rapid economic development and massive educational…